Help Diagnosing Front Suspension Ping Noise
 

I'm looking for advise to help diagnose a front suspension ping (not a clunk) that happens only when going over speed bumps. It sounds like it is on the drivers side. If I go over a speed bump slowly, no noise. If I go into the bump with a little speed (nothing excessive) I hear the ping almost as if it's when the suspension is compressed more than normal. I also can go slowly at first onto the speed dump and off (down) hard and get the ping as well. I've never heard it on the road or with any pot hole either. I've also put just one tire on the speed bump and one off the edge trying both sides and cannot reproduce the noise. It only seems to occur when I go over a speed bump with some speed and both tires hit it or come down at the same time.

I've tried to checked ball joints and tie rod ends (12 and 6, and 9 and 3 check for play). I have a sway bar relocate so the sway bar doesn't contact the spring/spring mount on the strut. I did remove both sections of the front skid plate and I still hear the same ping sound over speed bumps. I do have bilstein 5100s at the 0 setting, OME 884, and SPC Light Racing UCAs up front but I've had that setup for years and this noise started about 6 months ago. The only change I can think of that may be around the time the noise developed is that I got an alignment and had the caster set as high as they could go and even on both sides. Unfortunately I don't remember how much caster they got but I think it was around 3.5 degrees.

From searching I found a suggestion to check the torque on the alignment cam bolts of the lower control arm (Left front end pings when going over speed bumps | Tacoma World) which I plan on doing. I'm also planning on removing the sway bar/end links to see if that makes a difference as part of my troubleshooting.

It drives perfectly fine so I'm more curious than anything as to what it could be?

Thanks in advance.

I have this exact noise as well (along with a couple other suspension noises). The way you described it and the thread you linked are exactly how it sounds to me too when going over speed bumps. My front sway bar and end links are completely removed, so the noises aren't coming from there in my case. Lower control arms were just replaced, but the noise existed before and after they were changed. I'll be changing the upper control arms and inner/outer tie rods relatively soon and keep you updated if I find anything that fixes it.

check the skid plate bolts, it may have come loose. check both under the radiator and oil pan.

Good suggestion. I've ruled out the skid plate by reproducing the issue with both the front and back (oil pan) skid plates removed.

Ive had a sound like that I recently noticed. Your description about perfectly describes mine, except I can get the noise when going through an abrupt dip in the road at a high speed and I also hear it when offroad and I hit an abrupt bump. I am trying to figure it out. I will keep an eye on this thread and if I figure mine out Ill let you know.

I was able to solve this with new front sway bar bushings.

So the Bushings were loose and it was clunking between the metal? My bud's 3rd gen has this problem bad.

I don't know exactly how the sound was produced. I never found any metal to metal contact or signs of it. The original bushings were still torqued to spec and did not have any visible signs of issues (no tears or gaps) but they were original.

I ended up asking an expert AMD, Toyota Master Diagnostic Technician (YouTube Channel - The Car Care Nut) who knew exactly what it was when asked in a live stream - Toyota and Lexus Live Stream Q&A.